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Turner "Buzz" Meeks
Referenced in *The Black Dahlia *The Big Nowhere *L.A. Confidential *Perfidia Sergeant Turner "Buzz" Meeks ◾ LAPD, working Headquarters Robbery. ◾ ex-cowboy film actor. History Born in Lizard Ridge, Oklahoma Turner Meeks was known to be able to shoot a gilla monster (the skins from which the company's factory survived) from three yards away. After the town went under after the Dust Bowl he went to Hollywood where he acted an extra in westerns. When westerns went out of style he was seen as a man by Hollywood producers as a good fit for a strikebreaker. When the LAPD sees him as a natural fit for a cop he is taken in and quickly goes up in the ranks, ultimately getting a job in Narcotics in '44. In this position he is able to ingratiate himself with Mickey Cohen as well. In July of '46 he is the victim of an ambush, rumored to be set up by Mal Considine in retribution for him having an affair with Laura Considine, and forced into retirement. It's later revealed Dudley set him up and the assailants were Breuning and Carlisle. After retirement he is able to get a job as a bagman and fixer for Howard Hughes. The Black Dahlia A former cop and now the working for Howard Hughes, he is the unofficial liaison between the LAPD. He tells Bucky that on the twelfth Betty Short had been at a producer's house, Burt Lindscott, and was turned away after a poor screen test. Bucky realizes the timeline jells with her meeting with Johnny Vogel. The Big Nowhere Buzz Meeks' history is revealed and he is sent out on a job to intimidate Tommy Sifakis, a Greek drug dealer, who's blackmailing producer Sol Gelfman with pictures of his girlfriend engaging in pornography. Since the girl in question is a friend of Mckey Cohen's girlfriend, Audrey Anders, he tells Mickey not to kill him. Howard Hughes assigns Buzz to work with Mal and Dudley on the UAES Communist infiltrations into unions. Buzz goes to Mickey Cohen's place and while on bagman duty starts talking to Audrey Anders and kisses her. In need of money due to his debts to his bookie, he decides to join the grand jury team. He also calls Audrey who hangs up on him. He goes to East LA to question the Mexican population about Benavides, Duarte, and Lopez and finds out that they were hated and Benavides has family that's local. Going to visit his mom she says he's has developed connections with the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee and become a Communist and has become involved with a woman, Claire De Haven who had a drug problem before he took her to get the cure at a clinic overlooking the ocean. Going there he comes upon his old colleague, Terry Lux, who cleaned up Hollywood junkies. When he gets there however one of the first things he comes upon is men cutting off chicken heads with a zoot stick. Talking to Lux he finds out Claire, on one of her earlier stays at his clinic had caused problems due to seducing the other patients and had to be isolated. As the questioning continues it is revealed he wanted to be Claire's only supplier instead on Loftis. After going back to check his messages he finds a lead on Charles Hartshorn, and after strongarming him, finds out he had a fling with Loftis at the Knights in Armor. Going home he finds Audrey and they have sex. Buzz goes to Mickey Cohen's place as an excuse for work. Mickey informs him that him and Jack Dragna are going in on a heroin deal and he needs one more trigger and offers it to Buzz. Mickey also tells him he's being robbed by a bookie but it doesn't take long for him to figure out it was Audrey who was skimming so as she could buy her shopping mall. When he gets angry with her she tells him she loves him and they make love. Going out to eat with Buzz they hear about something that occurred at Mickey Cohen's house and in a panic Buzz speeds over there only to see Cohen's place was bombed and a crowd of onlookers had developed. In all the chaos Buzz rushes over to check on an upset Audrey, much to Mal's notice a promise to protect him. Danny goes to see Mal and Buzz at lunch, Buzz eating serving after serving. While there he complains to Mal about the state of his investigation, including Dudley's involvement. Mal takes of the homo comment Niles made but just as quickly dismisses it. When Buzz asks if there's any common denominators, Danny tells him about Gordean to whicj Mal says go after him. Buzz escapes an assassination attempt, where's he was thought to be Mickey, while with Audrey. After killing the man he discovers he's Gene Niles. Taking the body and burying it he then breaks into his house where he finds out Gene had demolitions training and in his journal a reference to Karen Hiltscher. Afterwards he realizes that Danny would be the first one to be accused in his killing after they had been in a fist fight. Buzz, while at Loew's does busy work while fixing Audrey's problems. Also he takes notes of Dudley and Breuning speaking privately. After pondering Danny's death he makes note of how his headstone is empty besides his name and doesn't tell the truth about his intelligence or any of his other qualities. Interest peaked, he goes to investigate who Danny was by talking to his mom, friend Tim, who he had had a relationship with, and coworkers. Mal takes his death hard and was of the only people at his funeral. In response to his death he fills his rooms with charts and graphs, throwing himself into his work...just to keep himself busy. As part of that he gave Buzz a number of responsibilities, one to locate Doc Lesnick. Coming away satisfied to a degree and feeling he owed Danny for skating on the Niles murder, he convinces Mal to join him in finishing up Danny's investigation by saying Danny had a fix on Reynolds Loftis as the killer, seeing as how he saw the two investigations converged since Hartshorn, was rousted a queer bar with Reynolds in '44. Buzz also notes that not only were Danny's notes on the murder investigation stolen but his grand jury notes as well. When all is said and done Mal agrees to join him. Coming away satisfied to a degree and feeling he owed Danny for skating on the Niles murder, he convinces Mal to join him in finishing up Danny's investigation. Mickey has found out Buzz's plan to cover Audrey's skimming was fake and he now seeks to find a way to cover it. Going over the info he's got Danny's murderer he figures that, first the cases converge on Reynolds Loftis due to him be rousted in '44 with Charles Hartshorn at a gay bar and Danny said Loftis might be the killer and was a good fit. Secondly, Augie Duarte victim number four was cousin to Juan Duarte who had worked with the SLDC in '42 and now works at Variety International Pictures where Lindenaur and worked as a rewrite man. When investigated further it was found out, through an LASD sergeant named Skakel that Lindenaur had blackmailed Hartshorn who he met through a pimp named Felix Gordean. Victim number one, Goines was killed with a heroin jolt and Reynolds Loftis was Claire's H procurer and Benavides when questioned mentioned Minear went to gay escort services and in kind Minear snitched on Loftis in retaliation for being with a mysterious other man that he had an odd reason to dislike. Two oddities remained however where was Doc Lesnick and why were the '42-44 pages in his Loftis file missing? As an aside it's noted in Mal's report that Benavides said the SLDC got anonymous letters. Mal discovers Loftis made three cash withdrawals in '44 and another the previous week. Thinking it all connects, him and Buzz go to question Loftis as Claire said he could. Throughout the questioning, despite it being rough, they find out that he had had "dates" with both George Wiltsie and Augie Duarte but couldn't get who the mystery man was that inspired Minear to snitch, only sobs and sweat. Also when they mentioned Felix Gordean's name it evoked nothing but a strange sort of fear. Going along Buzz asks an innocuous question about Sleepy Lagoon and how anonymous letters got sent and zoot sticks were used in the murders, which unexpectedly resulted in panic. When Mal asks Loftis who's blackmailing him he shuts down, leaving both him and Mal frustrated. While at Variety Buzz rehashes the previous night's interrogation and thinks how Mal almost messed it up. Hoping they didn't he still comes to the conclusion that Loftis is no killer but he and Claire probably did steal Danny's papers. As he's thinking he gets a call from Johnny Stompanato who tells him Mickey knows Audrey's the skimmer and he had sent is sending someone to get her. Rushing over, Buzz hurries her out of her house and says she must leave L.A. Afterwards Mal tells Buzz he talked to Jack who told him that Danny had found a place that made animal dentures and had spoken to a man who kept wolverines. He also found out that Dudley but tails on the men Danny had asked and while it might mean nothing he knew that the lead on the Bunker Hill burglaries in '42 whose ended coincided with Sleepy Lagoon was a hot lead. Also through process of elimination they found the name and address of a Coleman Masskie, who despite being young, was in Danny's opinion, important since he was Goines' burglary accomplice. Taking the address down Buzz goes and meets a woman who is Coleman's mother and tells him he left in '42. She also mentions he liked jazz, got an awful job at a dental place, dropped out of high school and became a burglar and she hadn't seen him since. He took off scared, to find his father When asked about if Dudley came around asking questions she clams up though. Mal tells him about gray wig, Loftis his dad, Dudley after him and they find Gordean dead. Mal tells he knows about Niles. Buzz goes to question Dudley's niece about his involvement which makes her faint, thus telling all. Going to Loew's house he looks over the photos of Coleman with the SLDC group. After looking over a picture of a man grafted skin he goes and strongarms to Terry Lux into telling all, that he made Coleman look like Loftis upon his orders however when he saw Loftis kissing Coleman his son, he supplied Gordean the info to blackmail Loftis with. Also, when Coleman came back not wanting to look like his dad any longer Lux leaves his face broken and bruised. Lux also tells Buzz that when he was healing at the clinic he became hooked on morphine and obsessed with zoot sticks. Buzz leaves Lux but not before a beating that resulted in a stroke and his inability to practice surgery any longer. Buzz and Mal compare notes and canvass jazz clubs and find out Coleman was seen talking to a sickly Jewish man. Going to find him they go to a heroin dealer on Lux's list and find out Claire and Loftis went to a jazz club where Coleman was playing. One event leads to another and Coleman goes out after Loftis, shots are heard and Coleman bloodies his father. Having shot Loftis, Mal thinks Coleman is subdued and prepares to arrest him but get killed instead. As a result Buzz empties his gun into Coleman. Buzz finds Doc Lesnick and gets all the information on Coleman. He tells how he evolved from a burglar who loved jazz and wolverines to a boy looking for his dad through whose plastic surgery to look like protected him from Dudley, whom he witnessed kill Jose Diaz. Seeing his appearance encouraged him to seduce his son who hated him for it. Eventually becoming obsessed with framing his dad he begins the murders. Meeting his old burglary partner, Marty Goines, he hopes to plan another murder but when Goines tells an old prison buddy, Bordoni, Coleman kills him and impersonates Loftis wig and all. His next murders were people his had dated. He was the man who tailed Danny when he was looking for leads at Gordean's and that led him to Duarte. After all is said and done Buzz leaves and finds out he'd been nailed as the Niles killer and the LAPD has a shoot to kill order. Buzz interrupts Cohen-Dragna heroin deal and takes off with it, but when he sees Dudley and tells him he'll get him for the Hartshorn and Diaz to which Dudley says he won't survive the day. Going to see Audrey they have sex and afterwards he realizes that, despite her being the one, she'd never be happy being on the lam or as a regular woman and calls Mickey to tell him where she is and asks him to promise he won't hurt her. Before he leaves LA however though he goes and burns down Loew's house with all the grand jury evidence in it. L.A. Confidential Hiding out from Mickey Cohen in Mexico with $94,000 and 18 pounds of high grade heroin, Buzz is caught and killed by Dudley after a gunfight. Category:Characters from The Black Dahlia Category:Characters from The Big Nowhere Category:Characters from L.A. Confidential Category:Characters from Perfidia Category:Bagmen Category:Murder victims